East Clinton will celebrating its annual Homecoming Friday night when a former head coach has a homecoming of his own in Lees Creek.
The Astros face the Indians of Hillsboro 7:30 p.m. Friday in a South Central Ohio League battle. The Indians are coached by former East Clinton head coach Matt Hodge.
But the focus for East Clinton will clearly be on finishing strong, in an otherwise disappointing season.
“We are not going to finish where we would have liked but an improvement over last year is in reach and sending the seniors out with their best record ever is still possible,” said EC head coach Jeremy Yankey.
East Clinton has been 2-8, 3-7, 3-7 the past three seasons.
The Astros are in the midst of a five-game losing streak, after a 2-0 start.
“We talk about the importance of being successful each week and getting better each week,” Yankey said. “During the course of the five-game losing streak, we have let a couple of games really slip by us that we feel like we could have won, but at the end of the day we are 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the SCOL and we must live with that. We still talk to our group of seniors about how they want to finish because their most successful season in high school is still within reach.”
Last week, East Clinton lost to Miami Trace 21-7.
“Once again we got off to a slow start both offensively and defensively,” Yankey said. “After the first two possessions of defense we played well the rest of the game. We put together a nice scoring drive right before the half but in the second half we seemed to stop ourselves with either a penalty or lack of execution.”
The Indians come into the game at 1-6 overall and 0-4 in the SCOL.
“Offensively the Indians can both run and pass the ball well,” the EC coach said. “On defense they have an attacking front seven who likes to put pressure on your QB. The Hillsboro kicker has a very strong leg and is accurate on his placekicking.”
